Election Day updates in Cascade County
Updated at 3:15 a.m.
Voter turnout is high in Cascade County and many people are still registering to vote today, according to elections officials.
At 3:15 p.m., updated results were printed with 40,353 ballots counted, which is all ballots for Cascade County other than 100 or fewer that need to be hand counted, according to county elections officials.
Preliminary results were printed at about 11:15 p.m. with 38,044 ballots, which includes mail ballots and votes cast at Exhibition Hall on Tuesday. Election officials estimate this is about 90 percent of all ballots cast in Cascade County and they are still processing several trays of ballots.
Though there were long lines for those registering to vote on Tuesday, which were anticipated, Rina Fontana Moore, county elections official, said that “everything went very smoothly.”
Locally, County Commission Jim Larson will keep his seat for another six years. Larson won with 24,040 over Jim Stone with 14,126.
At 10:45 p.m., there were about six voters left in Exhibition Hall and as soon as they’re done, officials will run the first batch of results.
At 8 p.m. the polls in Montana close, but the line at Montana Expo Park is still at least an hour long and extends from Exhibition Hall past Four Seasons Area, the grandstands and nearly to the administration offices.
Rina Fontana Moore said she’d send a Cascade County Sheriff’s Office deputy to the last person in line at 8 p.m. to mark the cut off for voting. She said she expects it will be at least 9:30-10 p.m. before officials are able to run the first batch of results since they have to wait until the last person in line has voted and left the building.
At 9:45 p.m. the line from Exhibition Hall still extended to about the middle of the Four Seasons Arena. Deputies outside said that in 41 minutes, the line had moved from the main entrance of the arena to the midway of the building. Between this reporter and deputies, it’s another estimated hour to the end of the line.
Lynn DeRoche, elections supervisor, said that as of 10:45 p.m., they’d processed about 38,000 ballots that had been mailed out and returned. The last batches of ballots had been picked up from the courthouse annex and other official drop boxes in the county and are being processed. Several thousand people are estimated to have registered in the county today, but total numbers aren’t yet available.
Wait times throughout the day have varied from 1.5 hours to 4 hours, according to elections officials and individual voters.
What you need to know about Election 2020 in Cascade County
Masks are required in Exhibition Hall to return ballots or register to vote and staff reconfigured the set up in Exhibition Hall to allow for distancing.
Since the law changed in the last legislative session, county elections officials were able to start processing ballots last week, meaning removing them from their secrecy envelopes and flattening them. On Monday, they were able to start running ballots through the counting machines. There were a few technical glitches with the machines on Monday but those were fixed quickly, DeRoche said.
Mail only elections supported by Cascade County officials
As of Nov. 3, there are 50,465 registered voters in Cascade County, according to the Montana Secretary of State’s Office, for a 79.96 percent voter turnout.
During the June 2020 primary, there were 46,525 registered voters in Cascade County and of those 25,272 cast votes for a 54 percent turnout, according to state.
Cascade County results
Preliminary results include 38,044 ballots, which includes mail ballots and votes cast at Exhibition Hall on Tuesday. Election officials estimate this is about 90 percent of all ballots cast in Cascade County and they are still processing several trays of ballots.
President
Donald Trump (R): 23,199
Joe Biden(D) : 15,384
Jo Jorgensen (L): 1,105
U.S. Senate
Steve Daines (R): 22,197
Steve Bullock (D): 17,644
U.S. House of Representatives
Matt Rosendale (R): 22,606
Kathleen Williams (D): 16.961
Governor and Lieutenant Governor
Greg Gianforte and Kristen Juras (R): 22,116
Mike Cooney and Casey Schreiner (D): 15,851
Lyman Bishop and John Nesper (L): 1,672
Montana Secretary of State
Christi Jaconbsen: (R): 23,687
Bryce Bennett (D): 15,127
Montana Attorney General
Austin Knudsen (R): 22,831
Raph Graybill (D): 16,146
State Auditor
Troy Downing (R): 22,158
Shane Morigeau (D): 14,449
Roger Roots (L): 1,962
State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Elsie Arntzen (R): 19,612
Melissa Romano (D): 17,759
Kevin Leatherbarrow (L): 1,642
Supreme Court Justice #5
Mike Black: 14,341
Laurie McKinnon: 20,728
Shall Jim Shea of the Montana Supreme Court be retainted for another term?
- Yes: 29,784
- No: 6,245
Shall John Parker be retained for another term on of the district court in Cascade County?
- Yes: 29,555
- No: 7,007
State Senator District 10
Steve Fitzpatrick (R): 9,973
State Senator District 15
Ryan Osmundson (R): 487
State Representative District 19
Wendy McKamey (R): 4,266
George Schultz (L): 760
State Representative District 20
Fred Anderson (R): 4,338
Melissa Smith (D)L 2,070
State Representative District 21
Ed Buttrey (R): 3,370
Jaime Horn (D): 1,758
State Representative District 22
Lola Sheldon-Galloway (R): 2,554
Jasmine Taylor (D): 1,832
State Representative District 23
Scot Kerns (R): 2,068
Brad Hamlett (D): 1,964
State Representative District 24
Steven Galloway (R): 2,351
Barbara Bessette (D): 2,050
State Representative District 25
Steve Gist (R): 2,276
Jasmine Krotkov (D): 2,029
State Representative District 26
Jeremy Trebas (R): 1,686
Helena Lovick (D): 1,498
State Representative District 27
Josh Kassmier (R): 801
State Representative District 30
Wylie Galt (R): 429
Cindy Palmer (D): 131
Clerk of Court
Tina Henry (D): 28,411
Cascade County Commission
Jim Larson (R): 24.040
Jim Stone (D): 14,126
Constitutional Amendment C-46
- Yes: 28,010
- No: 8,715
Constitutional Amendment C-47
- Yes: 26,943
- No: 9,589
Constitutional Amendment CI-118
- Yes: 21,429
- No: 17,618
Legislative Referendum No. 130
- Yes: 20,417
- No: 18,138
Initiative No. 190
- Yes: 21,657
- No: 17,960
